-Red Horns and Leviathan
We all held our breath.
Even though we trusted in the barrier and the invisibility spell, it happened on its own.
The goat demon had stopped right in front of us. There was no doubt it had noticed our presence.
The creature standing a few steps above us looked slightly different from the other goat demons.
Its splendidly curved horns were red, and its physique was incredibly imposing. It seemed to be a high-ranking one, or perhaps one with some special ability.
Its yellowish eyes were slowly sweeping over the place where we were.
Of course, we wouldn’t be visible to it, but it certainly seemed to be sensing something.
“Geh! Gigegeh!”
Suddenly, the goat demon shouted in a rough, hoarse voice. Then it swung its two hoofed arms toward us.
Thor, who had been at the very rear of the line, quickly stepped down one stair and, without realizing it, raised his hammer high.
It was an unconscious defensive motion, but fortunately he did not thrust the hammer outside the barrier.
I swiftly approached Thor, grabbed his arm and lowered it, signaling for him to fall back.
“Wait! Looks like there’s something down there. Hurry up and go down! Damn it, if only we could understand what those goat demons were saying.”
When the black mage shouted from above the stairs, his underlings soon came running down.
It seemed the black mages couldn’t understand the goat demons’ language either.
“They must have used invisibility magic. I can’t see anything.”
“Whether you can see it or not, go down and bump into it with your bodies!”
At his underlings’ frustrating reply, the black mage finally began running down the stairs himself.
Just then, the goat demon swung its arm backward toward them. A gust of wind whipped up, and the black mage and his underlings, who had been coming down the stairs, were blown upward.
“Ugh! What the hell? Why are you attacking us? You came here to help us!”
The black mage shouted angrily.
“Kaie! Kaiegeh!”
The goat demon turned its head toward the black mage and shouted back. This time, the sound felt extremely irritable.
Of course, I couldn’t understand the words, but I could roughly grasp what it was saying.
It was probably telling them not to interfere.
The black mage and his underlings were only noisy and of no help at all. Right now, the goat demon was trying to sharpen its senses to the utmost and locate us, so it must have been annoyed.
In any case, I was able to infer one fact from its behavior.
I didn’t know for what purpose, or under what orders, the goat demons had crossed over into Earth’s dimension, but they were not loyal to the black mages.
And they seemed like an extremely prideful race.
“Everyone, get down quickly! I’ll buy a little time here.”
While they were squabbling among themselves, I said to my companions.
But at that moment, the goat demon’s horns turned toward me. Its red horns trembled faintly.
Even though sound was definitely being blocked, it seemed to have heard my voice.
Even if it wasn’t sound, it had definitely sensed something.
‘Did it sense the waves caused by the blocking magic cutting off the sound? Even though it’s doubly blocked by the barrier?’
If so, that was nothing short of extraordinary mana detection.
The red-horned goat demon definitely seemed to possess formidable abilities.
“Damn it! Do whatever you want! For now, we’ll stand by here.”
Just then, the black mage shouted again, interfering with the goat demon’s detection.
That was fortunate for us.
While the goat demon shook its head and grumbled something, I looked down below.
My companions were quickly running down the stairs, just as I had told them. They all knew very well that now was not the time to fight.
I turned around and drew up my mana. Then I activated spatial magic.
If I activated spatial magic in this situation, the red-horned goat demon might notice, but there was no choice if I wanted to stop it.
Since it had already sensed my presence, I had to at least set a trap before it charged.
No matter how sturdy a barrier was, it could not be perfect.
On top of that, I didn’t know what other abilities that goat demon might have.
‘Generate a void!’
It was a relatively simple spatial spell.
I added an empty space between the place where the red-horned goat demon stood and where I was, turning it into a trap.
It would not last long, but for a while, it would be unable to reach me and would flounder in the void.
The goat demon tilted its head, then slowly descended the stairs.
Then, in an instant, it abruptly increased its speed and leaped toward the spot where I was, pouncing.
But the place it reached was the void I had created.
The horns of the creature that had fallen into the empty space trembled.
It swung its two hoofed arms in all directions. There was nothing for them to touch.
The goat demon leaped up again. But even then, the place it landed was still the void. It could not escape.
“Geh! Gigegeh! Geh!”
The creature suddenly lifted its head and shouted.
This time, an extremely high, sharp sound flowed out. It seemed like a signal meant to be heard from far away.
I left it alone and hurried down the stairs. Right now, the first priority was to get out of this place quickly.
How many floors had I descended? The doors to the stairwells above and below opened, and groups of goat demons rushed in.
They did not have red horns. They were ordinary ones with dull brown horns.
It wasn’t difficult to run past them. After all, they had no idea I was there.
However, the farther down I went, the more the number of goat demons increased.
Just as I began using a simple kinetic spell to move over their heads, the red-horned goat demon appeared before me again.
‘It really is fast.’
The void trap must have disappeared by now.
The creature, having run down like the wind, once again stopped precisely near me. Its red horns trembled.
Because I had been moving while my magic was activated, it must have left a trail. It seemed to have followed the trail of mana waves.
This wouldn’t do. It seemed I would have to deal with this one before leaving.
“Geh! Geh!”
A voice like coal soot rang out. At that, the surrounding goat demons began gathering around the red-horned one.
Even so, they still had not pinpointed my exact location.
I had an absolute advantage.
No matter how fast the goat demons were, I could see their movements, while they not only couldn’t see me, but couldn’t sense me accurately either.
I waited until the group of goat demons had all gathered.
They did manage to narrow down my position fairly closely. They gathered right beneath me, swinging their arms this way and that.
‘Now then…….’
Having prepared my mana in advance, I immediately activated my spell.
I unleashed North Wind Blizzard, a combination of wind magic and freezing magic, and at the same time moved downward with kinetic magic.
“Geh!”
“Kaie!”
“Kae-e-e!”
The goat demons caught in North Wind Blizzard screamed.
A cold, fierce snowstorm raged so violently it was impossible to see ahead.
The goat demons were swept up by the wind and thrown aside, and ice walls formed on the stairs in an instant.
“Geh! Kaie!”
The red-horned goat demon roared and began ramming the ice wall wildly with its horns. But this was not freezing magic that could be broken so easily.
“Damn it! You demon bastards! You can’t even block it! It’s a mage! Emergency!”
From above, I heard the black mage shouting as he ran down.
Too late. The stairs were already completely blocked by ice walls. The goat demons had become lumps of ice, rolling this way and that.
Whoosh!
By the time I heard someone cast fire magic, I had already reached the very bottom of the stairs.
When I opened the stairwell door and went out, my companions were waiting for me in the elevator hall.
“Ah! You’re here!”
“Are they chasing us?”
“Let’s go quickly. We’ve been discovered anyway, so we can move with kinetic magic now. Still, maintain the barrier and invisibility!”
At my words, the mages each activated kinetic magic.
From the elevator hall, we only had to pass through the narrow corridor beside the precipice to reach the machine room. And there, the portal was located.
The mages began flying one by one, and only Yantu tried to simply run down the corridor, so I grabbed him at once, tucked him under my arm, and flew with him.
Skritch. Skritch. Skritch. Skritch.
Hearing the sound of a swarm of cockroaches moving somewhere, I lifted my head and saw goat demons running down along the wall of the precipice.
“Geh! Geh!”
A shout came once again from the direction of the elevator hall.
It was the red-horned goat demon. The creature had somehow already made it down there.
In the end, it seemed the one who had used fire magic to break through the ice wall and escape was not the black mage, but that thing.
‘Not bad. Looks like it’s a goat demon mage.’
In any case, it was definitely an enemy to be wary of.
But even that creature was too late. We had already arrived at the machine room.
The red-horned one was following close behind us, but it still had not pinpointed our exact location.
“Geh! Gigegeh!”
Just as its high, sharp cry rang out again.
Suddenly feeling the surroundings grow dark, I looked back and saw a pitch-black aura surging in from above.
The moment I wondered at the sight of the pit turning black, the head of a gigantic beast abruptly shoved its way in, mercilessly smashing through the entrance to the machine room.
“Huh? What is that?”
“It’s Leviathan! How did it know this place was here……?”
“R-run! Hurry!”
At the tremendous sound of the building breaking apart, the mages ahead also looked back, went pale with fright, and staggered backward.
“Keep moving! Run to the portal!”
I pushed Yantu forward by the back and ordered everyone. Then I turned toward Leviathan.
As though it knew exactly where we were, Leviathan plunged its head straight into the machine room and forced its way inside.
The only fortunate thing was that the building was narrow, so it couldn’t move quickly.
I swiftly drew up my mana and spread a barrier.
Riiip! Riiip! Rumble!
The protrusions jutting out along Leviathan’s back tore through the barrier and destroyed the building.
As a Demon King-class creature of the Demon Realm, it seemed to rip apart a simple barrier as easily as tearing a curtain.
As it drew closer, the building gradually began collapsing.
The debris of the shattered building bounced off the moment it touched Leviathan’s black, sleek body, scattering in all directions.
I looked back toward my companions again.
They were flying with kinetic magic at full power and had now reached the portal at the opposite end.
“Hurry through the portal!”
Shouting, I also hurriedly moved with kinetic magic.
When I was the last to step into the portal and looked back, Leviathan’s hideously gleaming face had come right up to me.
In that instant, fire burst from its mouth like an explosion. Black smoke poured from its nostrils, and both the smoke and flame reeked of sulfur.
The creature itself was like hell.
Sooner or later, we would have to face it, but right now was not the time.
I quickly closed the portal.